A budget you will still use in February
Budgets fail from ambition, not arithmetic. The survivable version starts from reality and is reviewed in twenty minutes a month.
1. Start from actuals
Last year's P&L by month is the draft. Adjust for known changes — the rent increase, the new hire — not for hopes.
2. Budget few accounts
Ten accounts cover most of the money. Budgeting sixty lines guarantees you will stop by spring.
3. Review variances monthly
Budget vs Actual, two questions: what moved most, and is it timing or trend? Timing is fine; trend gets a decision.
4. Change something
A variance you read but never act on is a subscription to disappointment. The budget's job is to force one decision a month.
A budget nobody compares is a wish
Most small-business budgets fail not in the setting but in the comparing: built in a spreadsheet in January, opened again in November. Without a monthly comparison against actuals it is a document, not a control.
The comparison is what makes it worth the hour it takes to build.
Pro-rate, and keep the unbudgeted visible
Comparing eight months of actuals against a full year's budget makes every line look wonderful. Pro-rating the budget to the window is the only comparison that means anything. And accounts with activity but no budget line should be listed rather than hidden — money spent through an account nobody budgeted still spends.
That list of unbudgeted accounts is usually where the drift is.
What SeroBooks does with this
Budget vs Actual pro-rates to the period automatically, leads with budgeted profit, actual profit and variance, and lists accounts with activity but no budget line rather than omitting them. Actuals come straight from the ledger, so keeping the comparison honest costs one setup session a year.
Any variance drills to the accounts and documents behind it.
See it in your own numbers.
Free to start, on Windows, Mac, iPad and Android. No credit card.